A modern society is served by utilities that must function properly at almost all times. Proper functioning is typically expressed by reliability, availability, accountability, and certifiability, the latter term meaning the ability of a user of a utility to actively query and learn the status of the utility. In order to meet the growing demands while providing reliability and efficiency, utilities, such as electric utilities, are developing and implementing technologies to create an intelligent infrastructure, such as a “smart grid” infrastructure of the power grid.
In order to realize an intelligent infrastructure, there must be an embedded or overlaid communications architecture by which components in the network structure can be accessed and controlled. Unfortunately, there is much ongoing, and indeed increasing, malicious cyber activity directed to harming the utility infrastructure. Trojan horses, viruses, and computer worms, for example, are often deployed and improved in order to disrupt the utility metering functions and other communications in the utility network.
In order to limit the potential damage of the cyber security threat, efforts are underway to enable awareness of potential threat events as well as their details and effects in order to harden the utility communication infrastructure both proactively and in response to incidents. The insinuation of malware, either by accident or design, has become commonplace. The effects of digital malware vary and the effects on the overall network's health and efficiency range from nuisance to minacious. The spectrum of the cyber malefactor's intentions is also expanding from simple to sophisticated hacking.
Smart Grid system architects and designers proceed to invest the system with a near optimal hardening against cyber security threats. Unfortunately the cyber security threat will continue to grow after the system design has been finished and the system evolves according to its design. While electronic modules are being developed to identify and neutralize some attacks, many situations continue to require human monitoring, human intuition, human decision, and human interaction to diagnose and counter new cyber hazards.
There is an important and often overlooked or underestimated consideration to the Human Machine Interface (HMI) and that is the speed and efficiency paradox. Communications continue to be forced to ever increasing transmission rates and lower latencies. The HMI is unable to participate in analysis and control of a message or series of messages requiring availability on the order of that required for protective relaying. As urgency diminishes, however, the availability requirements are relaxed for other message classes. In fact they may grow by as much as 8 orders of magnitude to days/weeks/months for collecting certain long-term data. There are, therefore, some message classes that can be forwarded with less urgency if necessary. For these message classes it would be best if there were alternatives between doing nothing and shutting down network propagation.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.